The U.S. Federal Reserve raised its key, Federal Reserve Funds Rate (Fed Funds) .25% on Monday, March 13th, 2017 for the second time this year, citing economic growth, job gains and confidence.
Then the mortgage market did something odd. Mortgage rates dropped. The yield on the 10 year US treasury peaked at 2.60% the day the FOMC chair, Janet Yellen announced the Federal Reserve would raise its key Fed Funds rate to 1.00%, from .75%.
The reason? Consumer debt gets pricing from DC and mortgages get their pricing from Wall Street. Fed Funds is the interest rate the Federal Reserve changes its member banks for short term loans. There is no direct correlation between the Federal Reserve raising rates and mortgage rates.
So in other words, Fed Funds going up has an effect on your credit card rates and consumer loan rates, rates tied to the prime lending rate, but not mortgage rates.
So what do I do if I’m in the mortgage market? The best indicator of mortgage rates is the yield on the 10 year US Treasury which can be found here https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5ETNX?p=^TNX